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The College Faculty Handbook (VI.E) states that reappointment, tenure, and promotion of faculty shall be “based on accomplishments and promise in teaching, in scholarship, and in professional service,” and that while “the first two are most important, all weigh in the decision and the quality of teaching is the most heavily weighted criterion.” The following guidelines describe the Department’s expectations in these areas based on our disciplinary and pedagogical best practices, detailing in particular what constitutes evidence of the candidate’s performance and how that evidence is collected and evaluated.

The Department expects faculty to demonstrate a commitment to furthering diversity, equity, and inclusion in their teaching, research, and service.

I. Teaching

In line with the Faculty Handbook, GRIA faculty are committed to excellence in teaching. Candidates for tenure and promotion are strongly encouraged to reflect on their contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion in their teaching in particular, and to articulate plans for continued development in their self-evaluations, i.e., in personal statements and annual reports.

GRIA faculty teach courses with a focus on language skills and cultural awareness in their target language and also courses in English translation relevant to their expertise and interests which enrich the curricula of GRIA’s cognate cultural studies programs and other areas of the College curriculum.

The Department believes that the most effective language pedagogy is communicative-based instruction^[1] that not only builds effective speaking, reading, and writing skills, but simultaneously develops the student’s intercultural competencies and ability to reflect on their own position as a foreign language learner.

The Department will evaluate a candidate’s effectiveness as a teacher according to the following criteria:

• The ability to teach their target language at all levels using up-to-date practices of communicative foreign language pedagogy which include effective linguistic skill building and the development of students’ cultural competencies, as appropriate to the course level. (The primary evidence for having met this standard will be peer classroom observation and teaching material assessments, annual reports, and the personal statement.)
• Demonstrated strengths in the areas of organization, creativity, and inclusivity in course and syllabus design, as well as in classroom practice. (The primary evidence for having met this standard will be peer classroom observation and teaching material assessments, annual reports and the personal statement, student letters, and student evaluations)
• The establishment of high expectations while providing the tools necessary for students to succeed, such as assignment and assessment design, out-of-classroom support (Language Center or other tutoring resources, office hours, etc.) (The primary evidence for having met this standard will be peer teaching material assessments, syllabi, annual reports, the personal statement, and student letters and evaluations.)
• The ability to motivate and support students’ intellectual growth and stimulate interest and enthusiasm for language learning or the subject. (The primary evidence for having met this standard will be student letters and evaluations, classroom observation reports, the personal statement, and annual reports.)
• Demonstrated reflection and iterative growth as a teacher over time. (The primary evidence for having met this standard will be the candidate’s self-evaluation in annual reports, annual reviews, and the personal statement.)

In addition to the evidence described above, the Department will take into consideration the external reviewers’ evaluations of the teaching materials. All these elements will be considered alongside the candidate’s narrative self-evaluation of their growth and development as a teacher over time, as reflected in their annual reports and personal statements. Details about the classroom observation process are located in the appendix of this document.

Candidates standing for reappointment should demonstrate that they are establishing themselves as effective teachers according to the standards outlined above and should communicate clearly in their annual reports and personal statement how they are on track to meet the requirements for tenure, particularly if there are areas of the teaching record that require attention.

Candidates standing for tenure should demonstrate evidence that they have established themselves as effective teachers according to these criteria. They should have developed a full repertoire of courses in language and culture. They should communicate clearly in their personal statement how they have met the requirements for tenure and how they have addressed any areas of the teaching record that require attention.

Candidates standing for promotion to Professor should demonstrate continued excellence in teaching according to the standards outlined above. In addition, candidates should have helped revise or update the content of existing language courses and/or developed new culture courses between the time of tenure and when they stand for promotion in ways that reflect new developments and trajectories in their pedagogical or research interests.

Expectations for teaching and evaluation criteria are the same for all faculty. Professors of Instruction may, but are not required to, teach courses in translation in consultation with their Department/program chair. For Professors of Instruction, offering courses in translation will be regarded as exceeding expectations within the category of teaching.

II. Scholarship

A scholarly record should demonstrate original contribution to knowledge and serious engagement with an audience of specialists within and/or beyond the candidate’s field through the publication of peer-reviewed work. The scholarly record should also demonstrate the candidate’s trajectory of professional growth and recognition for their work in the form of (for example) invited contributions to journals or edited volumes, grants or fellowships, invited lectures, conference presentations or panel organization, and book (or performance) reviews. The Department values both traditional forms of scholarship in different fields of cultural studies and creative expression, pedagogical work, curation, and work involving digital, new, and other non-conventional forms of media. Such scholarship will be judged according to its merits within its respective field and in relation to the quality and impact of the venue where it appears. We regard organizing conferences and panels as important varieties of scholarly activity which contribute to a candidate’s tenure file to a degree consistent with the quality and impact of the given activity. The Department welcomes scholarship that engages with and contributes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our multilingual department values but does not require publications in languages other than English.

In assessing the overall quality of a scholarly portfolio, the Department or ad-hoc tenure and promotion committee will consider whether the candidate has met the minimum benchmarks for scholarly productivity, as described below.

The Department follows the Faculty Handbook in recognizing “the variety of forms that scholarship takes” and in granting that “the evaluation of the quality of scholarship may be made in a number of ways” (Faculty Handbook, VI.F.2). While the Department values quality over quantity in scholarly output, for candidates standing for tenure, we normally expect 3-5 peer-reviewed articles or their equivalents (published or accepted for publication) at the time that the candidate turns in their materials. Although a book is not required for tenure, the publication of a monograph or a substantial book-length manuscript in progress (i.e. under contract or in review), along with 1-2 refereed articles, will also be accepted in place of 3-5 articles. A textbook or substantial book-length translation may also fulfill the expectations for scholarly standing, depending on the scope of the project and quality of the publisher, provided that the candidate has demonstrated a continued trajectory of scholarly development. Evaluators will count these and other forms of scholarship in a quantifiable way toward the total scholarship expected for tenure, but such scholarship does not constitute an adequate record of scholarly activity in the absence of refereed publications.

Other kinds of scholarly output, while not weighted as heavily as original, peer-reviewed scholarship, are nonetheless components of a candidate’s research profile and contribution to the field. The Department/ad-hoc committee will weigh the significance of this body of work in order of priority:

1. Edited volumes.
2. Peer-reviewed scholarship not subject to double-blind peer review, including full-length academic articles in edited volumes and editor-invited publications.
3. Non-peer-reviewed publications (those in which review is primarily limited to copy editing and formatting), article-length or other substantial translations, or article-length publications in the realm of public scholarship in significant venues.
4. Book reviews, shorter op-ed pieces, dictionary or encyclopedia entries, contributions to textbooks, and other pieces that tend to connect the field to a broader audience.\

In accordance with The Faculty Handbook, the principal mechanism for evaluating the quality and impact of scholarship and publication venues will be “confidential evaluations of a candidate’s scholarly work from professional peers outside of the College” (Faculty Handbook, VI.F.2). Scholarship accepted or contracted for publication should be submitted with the tenure portfolio and will be regarded the same as scholarship that has already been published. The candidate is encouraged to contextualize publication venues; the review process for peer-reviewed publications; editorial work; and digital, new, and other non-conventional media and scholarly forms in their personal statement to help evaluators assess the quality and impact of such work. Publications prior to coming to Hamilton are part of the scholarly record; however, the Department expects evidence of continued scholarly activity and development since arriving at Hamilton.

Other independent assessments or recognition, such as published reviews of the candidate’s work, as well as awards, prizes, or research grants, are not required for reappointment, tenure, or promotion, but should be considered as part of the candidate’s research portfolio by the Department and external reviewers.

Candidates standing for reappointment should demonstrate in their personal statement that they are on track to meet the expectations for tenure by making concrete reference to their progress vis-à-vis the qualitative and quantitative criteria described above.

Candidates standing for promotion to Professor should present a scholarly profile that has developed significantly beyond that which they submitted for tenure and that displays “sustained learning, creativity, and professional growth” (Faculty Handbook, VI.F.4). This may include a book project, published or under contract, or several peer-reviewed articles, published or accepted for future publication, demonstrating growth either in the same field or in a new area. Other kinds of publications or work will be weighed as described above for candidates for tenure. Candidates for promotion to Professor may also include examples of work that communicates their research or professional expertise/viewpoint to a broader audience such as op-eds, essays, public lectures, interviews, consulting, managing websites, etc.

Candidates standing for promotion to Associate Professor or Professor of Instruction are not required to engage in original research or publish.

III. Service

The Department recognizes three areas of professional service that GRIA faculty should engage in as they progress through the academic ranks: to the Department; to the College; and to the profession at large. While we don’t require a fixed number, or specific kinds, of service commitment, a candidate’s record should reflect a trajectory of growing involvement, responsibility, and leadership in the above areas over time. Our expectation is that junior faculty will engage mostly in department-level service and, if they choose, in modest College-wide or committee work, while more substantial College-wide service and service to the profession will normally be expected for promotion to Professor. Service to the profession may include editing scholarly journals, or serving as referees for scholarly publications.

Professors of Instruction and Visiting Faculty are expected to contribute to curricular development and perform routine departmental service, such as attending meetings and organizing language tables and co-curricular activities or events related to their teaching. They are not required to do academic advising or take on any College-wide service obligations unless they so choose. Non-tenure-line faculty subject to the processes of reappointment and promotion who engage in departmental service beyond these routine activities will be regarded as having exceeded expectations within the category of service, as will those who engage in service beyond the departmental level.

The Department encourages faculty at all levels to highlight in their annual reports both formal and informal service contributions, particularly around student or junior faculty mentoring and other activities, that might not be captured in a survey of typical departmental or college committee work, and in particular any service work that contributes to the College’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals.

Tenured faculty being considered for promotion to Professor should have a strong record of both departmental and College-wide service that demonstrates ongoing participation in faculty governance and the life of the campus community, as well as service to the profession that shows the candidate maintains an active professional profile and has achieved recognition for their leadership and expertise in the field.

Appendix I (also in GRIA Department handbook)

Class/Teaching observation guidelines

Faculty should be observed in the classroom by each voting member of the Department or ad-hoc committee members voting on their reappointment, tenure, or promotion at least once, but no more than twice, prior to each review. The Department or ad-hoc committee should confer on this regularly so that class visits are ideally spread out over several semesters (no more than two visits should happen within the same semester) so as not to happen all at once in the months prior to the review.^[2] The candidate should be observed teaching both introductory and advanced language courses, as well as cultural studies courses in translation. A written classroom observation report (which will include notes about the pre-observation meetings) should include an assessment of the course based upon criteria for effective teaching outlined in the Department’s tenure and promotion guidelines. The observer and candidate should have a pre-observation meeting as well as a follow-up conversation shortly after the observation to debrief, discuss the syllabus and other teaching materials, and ask/answer any questions about how the class went. If a candidate feels that they had an off day or that something happened outside of their control that impacted their teaching effectiveness on that day, they may request a make-up observation. If an in-person observation is not possible due to schedule conflicts or other issues, a video recording of a class may be used. Following a meeting with the candidate to discuss their evaluation of the candidate’s teaching, the observer should provide the candidate with a copy of their evaluation in a timely fashion (at least by the end of the semester) and submit a copy to the Department/ad-hoc committee chair as well. The chair (or AOA) will maintain a file of classroom observations for each Department member. Copies of classroom observations will be included in the candidate’s file.

One-year Visiting faculty may request a class observation by the chair or other faculty member if they wish to include it in a letter of recommendation or their teaching dossier for the job market. Adjunct faculty will need to be observed once per contract appointment by the Chair or an appropriate senior faculty member. The Chair or a voting member of the Department will schedule classroom visits with Professors of Instruction at least once, but no more than twice, before each reappointment. Other voting members will gain firsthand knowledge of the POI’s teaching through the examination of a teaching portfolio provided by the POI at the time of reappointment and/or promotion. Faculty in their first semester of teaching will be reviewed for formative purposes only; no written documentation of the first-semester review will be generated.

_{^[1] Communicative language teaching, or the communicative approach, emphasizes active interaction and use of the language, ideally in “everyday” situations, as both the means of instruction as well as the ultimate goal of language learning.}

_{^[2] This policy will need to be revisited after the current members of the Department have gone through the tenure process.}